Sue Bird converted frustration with ‘insanely, almost unbelievably low’ women’s sports coverage into new media platform

• Sue Bird's frustration with the lack of women's sports coverage led to her new media company.
• Co-founded with Alex Morgan, Chloe Kim, and Simone Manuel, TOGETHXR aims to level the playing field.
• Bird spoke to Insider about providing "more 'see it, be it' moments for the younger generation."
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Sue Bird has been fed up with women's sports coverage – or lack thereof – for a very, very long time.

In fact, the WNBA icon can still remember the first time she saw a professional athlete who looked like her. She was already a teenager.

"When I was a kid, there was no one on TV for me to look up to," Bird told Insider. "People ask me all the time, just in general interviews, 'Oh, who'd you model your game after? Who did you look up to?' and for modeling my game, I don't have an answer because there was nobody to watch at those ages."

Three decades and an esteemed career later, everything and nothing has changed. Bird has racked up four WNBA championships, 11 All-Star nods, more assists than anyone in the league's history, and four Olympic gold medals.

But through it all, the media landscape has hardly budged. Today, only 4% of sports media coverage is devoted to women's sports, leaving even the stars of Bird's magnitude thirsting for recognition.

"It's been frustrating at times - I'd be lying if I said it wasn't," Bird admitted. "When you look at the number 4%, it's just insanely, almost unbelievably low. That needs to change."

So now, at the twilight of her illustrious career, Bird is taking it upon herself to help facilitate the change - in conjunction with some like-minded and similarly-situated superstars. She teamed up with US Women's National Team striker Alex Morgan, snowboarding prodigy Chloe Kim, and trailblazing swimmer Simone Manuel to create their own media company focused on women. Each of them, like Bird, is an Olympic gold medalist and a leader in their respective sport

TOGETHXR, which officially launched at the beginning of March, is the resulting sports and lifestyle platform with the ambitious but long overdue goal of eradicating the gender inequality gap in media coverage. And they're going even further. Beyond tackling sexism, TOGETHXR is focused on offering diversity in all forms, and its founding foursome serves as just one manifestation of the publication's emphasis on "representation and intersectionality."

"The four of them are so accomplished on their own, but together I joke that they're like the Avengers," Chief Content Officer Jessica Robertson told Insider. "They have different ages, they play different sports, there's different accomplishments, there's different orientations, and different races. It's just such an incredible, powerful collective."

For Bird, those differences fortify the group because "having different voices, different ideas, different outlooks at that table and being able to throw ideas around [is] how you get the good stuff." Having a diverse group of founders also contributes to TOGETHXR's ultimate goal of providing "see it, be it" moments to as many young women as possible.

The idea, Bird explained, is that young people are better able to aspire to something once they see someone like them doing it first. Her own "see it, be it" moment - her realization that she could become a professional basketball player - came "pretty late in the game" after watching superstar Jennifer Azzi play for the first time.

"I didn't get mine until I was 14," Bird said. "Even then, I was probably lucky to get it, and that's coming from a white girl. So nowadays, we need to get more stories out about other people."

"And then what will hopefully come from that is more 'see it, be it' moments for the younger generation."